The Strange Man
by btbassaj
Summary: Oneshot. Still reeling from the death of her family, Arya Stark encounters a strange man who gives her comfort and solace. Unfortunately, she will never see him again. Non-slash.


_All she could hear was screaming._

_ The sounds of fire, steel on steel, and howls of pain. A storm of swords and death, overwhelming her senses._

_ She opened her eyes to witness the bloodbath before them._

_ A pair of horses ran down a soldier who was groping for his blade, trampling him into the mud. A mob lynched a squire on the nearby tree, ignoring his pleads for mercy. Footmen held down and beheaded a knight who struggled in vain to free himself, while their comrades set fire to the nearby tents. Men were stabbed and burnt, decapitated and hanged, throttled and cut down._

_ All around her, chaos and death reigned over the Twins._

_ She remembered running towards the open door, looking for any indication of her mother or brother. Anything, just anything. They had to be alive._

_ But now, she was outside. Far away._

_ She had only just opened her eyes when she heard the chants coming from the door._

_ "The King in the North! The King in the North! The King in the North!"_

_ Robb?_

_ She glanced up at the Hound, who held her on the horse. His face displayed only abject shock. She turned her head towards what he was looking at._

_ "Here comes the King in the North!"_

_ She could only make out a dark silhouette on a horse, slowly marching towards them, surrounded by an assembly of knights holding up torches and swords._

_ He's alive?_

_ The horse only needed to turn and the men laugh and cheer. The pain was sharper than any blade she had handled, harder than any stone she had slept on, stabbing through her heart as she saw what was once her brother paraded around with the head of his direwolf sewn onto his headless corpse._

_ Before she could say anything, the Hound kicked the horse and they fled the grisly scene. She wanted to scream out at him that she wanted to go back, that she wanted to find her mother, that they couldn't be dead, but her voice had disappeared somehow. She couldn't breathe. All she could do was hold on tightly to the man as the slaughter continued and the horse galloped to the exit._

_ She tried to close her eyes tightly and open them, maybe hope that when she opened them everything would change, but it didn't happen. Instead, she saw faces swimming through her head._

_ She saw Joffrey, grinning maliciously as her father's head was lifted into the air. She saw Cersei, smirking malevolently while she heard Sansa scream somewhere behind her. Cersei's face was replaced by Tywin's unflinching gaze burning deep into her, turning her insides ice cold. Suddenly, she saw her mother, calling out to her. She tried to call back, but face slowly disappeared into the surrounding darkness. She then saw Robb, but instead of his face, there was the head of a giant wolf that snarled and snapped viciously, and then leaped forward towards her, fangs bared._

Arya jolted upwards.

It was nighttime, and the fire had long since burned out. A cold breeze was flowing, rustling the nearby bushes and leaves. The Hound was snoring nearby, on the trunk of one of the countless trees surrounding them that obscured the moonless sky above. Even so, Arya could still make out the countless dots of stars above her. Other than the sounds of ambience and snoring, the forest slept as deeply as the Hound. They were somewhere in the woods of the Riverlands, far away from the Twins.

The Twins.

She remembered everything now. The killings. The soldiers. The horse. The wolf.

Robb.

She bit her lip hard. The pain was gone but the wound remained. First her father, now her brother. And maybe even her mother. She never got the chance to find out. Another one of her family, gone forever. She had come so far, from King's Landing to Harrenhal, and from Harrenhal to the Twins, having to fake her identity so many times to stay safe and try to get home, and once again she'd failed. All her efforts got her nowhere, and now she was back at the start. Alone, cold, lonely, and on the run.

She remembered what her father once told her.

_"When the cold wind blows, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives"._

How wrong he had been. She was still alive, but the pack had died at the Twins.

Murdered. Destroyed. Ruined.

And she was all alone. Sansa was still a captive in King's Landing, Bran and Rickon were far away in Winterfell, and Jon even farther at the Wall. She missed them all, even Sansa. Even if the last time they had parted it was with sour words and lots of yelling, she looked forward to being back with her bigger sister now more than ever. She would even be courteous to her and call her "milady" if Sansa desired, but Arya just wanted to see her again. Most of all, though, she missed Jon. She cherished the desire for him to ruffle her hair again and poke fun at her, like he had always done in days past before they went their separate ways. She wanted nothing more than to be back with her family now.

But the family was torn apart, and she was alone in the woods with the Hound, on the run once again.

Arya felt the tears threaten to well up. She had not cried from the tragedy at the Twins, but her heart was still hollow, and now at the memory of it all she had begun to give up. She didn't want to be strong anymore, she had tried and tried and failed. She just wanted to go home now. They had come so close, but ended up so far. It seemed hopeless, but she blinked them away. She wouldn't cry. She was a Stark of Winterfell, she thought to herself. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't scream, she wouldn't seem weak.

But what was the point? All her family were getting killed, one by one, being strong didn't help them. It didn't stop death. She had tried being brave, time and again, in the face of insurmountable odds, but she felt her breaking point draw near. For the first time in a long time, she was afraid.

_Fear cuts deeper than swords_, she had to remind herself. But the man who told her that once was dead, as was her father and brother. And there was nothing she could do about it.

There was nothing she could do at _all_.

She blew a heavy sigh and decided to lay back down into sleep again. But now she couldn't. Not with all the images sweeping through her head every time her eyes closed. She chose instead to look up at the night sky, and hopefully sleep would take her again. The night was dark, made darker by the surrounding foliages, with only blinks of light in the sky to remind her of the stars. The forest was eerily quiet, punctuated only by the ambient sounds of the distant bird, the leaves shuffling in the wind, and what Arya could make out as a distant grinding sound.

Arya sat up and turned her head towards the sound, somewhere off into the woods. It reminded her of steel grinding itself against steel, something she would have heard at the smiths, although not like anything she'd heard before. It wasn't a natural sound, either, and whatever it was, it stopped after a while.

She stared off into the distant darkness, ears perked up for the slightest of changes, but she could not detect anything. Her instinct, however, told her otherwise.

There was something out there.

_Fear cuts deeper than swords_. She stood up slowly, walked quietly over to the Hound, and took the dagger from his side. He kept on snoring, not noting the fact that she had taken one of his blades in his sleep. Whatever was out there, she didn't want to be caught toothless.

When it was secured on her belt, she carefully paced over into the darkness where the sound originated from. Passing through the large trees on her sides, she proceeded into the black. The ambient sounds of the forest persisted, yet much less than before. She kept the camp within eyeshot in case she had to walk back. She didn't want to get lost around here.

Her eyes wandered around the surrounding areas, sharp on the lookout for anything unnatural or dangerous that could leap out when she was least expecting it. However, it seemed the dark wasn't intent on producing anything of the sort now, because nothing was stirring at all.

Suddenly, the bushes to her right stirred and Arya whirled around, dagger in hand, ready to counter what appeared to be… a rabbit hopping between the bushes, looking for grub. Arya looked behind her at the campsite, wondering whether she should just go back and try to sleep again instead of chasing ghosts all night long when she heard rustling once again. She turned back around and gripped the dagger firmly.

Out from the bushes in front of her stepped out a man. Probably the strangest man she had ever seen in her life.

He was tall, and wore what appeared to be a brown cloak over blue garments with red-and-white shoes, one of the most outrageous combinations of garbs she had ever laid eyes on. His hair was dark brown and seemed to be a bit untidy, although it seemed to be folded backwards; his skin was pale, his hands bony. When they made eye contact, Arya held the blade tighter, and slowly lifted it in front of her, pointing the end at the stranger.

"Who are you?" she said cautiously.

The man didn't answer. Instead, he began to walk gently forward, towards her.

Arya backpedalled and held the blade higher.

"Stay back!" she warned. "What do you want?"

The man's features became more pronounced, and Arya looked into his brown eyes for the first time. She didn't know why, but she felt a chill go up her spine when she saw them clearly. And yet…he didn't seem dangerous.

Arya lowered her dagger.

The man kept walking until he was right in front of her. His face was serious, yet Arya could detect a hint of sympathy behind it.

"There's only one thing I want" he said quietly, with an unfamiliar accent.

"What's that?" she questioned tentatively.

The man bent down and brought his arms around her tightly.

For a second, Arya was speechless. Ever since she was young, she had always been teased and made fun off, called names from Underfoot to Horseface to Lumpyhead and always looked down on by others. She had made a few friends, like Mycah and Gendry, and still loved and was loved by her family.

But never before in her life had a complete stranger hugged her out of nowhere.

That last thought shook her out of her stupor and she struggled to free himself from his grip. But he wouldn't budge.

"Let me go!" she said persistently.

He didn't react however, and Arya found herself struggling harder.

"I said, let me go!" she said, louder.

"I won't" the man whispered.

"Didn't you hear me?" Arya said, now starting to grab at his arms "Let me go!"

"Don't" the man said, with a hint of protest in his voice.

But she didn't. She had no idea who this person was, why he was acting so soft, but she didn't trust him. She had barely met him and now he was acting like her father.

_Father_.

And then Arya stopped. Her chest tightened as the memory came to her.

_Brother._

She wanted to yell at the man again, to release her, but her throat was constricted. She couldn't say anything.

"It'll be all right" the man said, as if he knew what she was talking about. "I promise".

She wanted to say it wouldn't be, that nothing would ever be, that she had lost her family and would probably never see them again, but once again the words were caught in her throat. She felt the tears about to come up again, but she wouldn't allow it. She began to take deep breaths, the better to stall her display of weakness.

Once again, though, the man knew what was happening "Let it out" he said softly "Don't keep it in".

"I won't" she answered adamantly, even as her eyes began to grow blurry from the drops of sadness "I'm not weak".

"It's not because you're weak" was the response. "You've been strong for more than you can handle." There was a small pause. "Even grown-ups cry".

The words shook her to the core because that was the truth of it. Seeing her family and friends die in front of her, on the run in a world that hated her, having to deal with death every day of her life, coming so close to home only to be dragged away from it again. The sheer combined memories of them all, coupled with her desires and hopes being so far away now, not to mention this strange man who had appeared to her just to comfort her in her time of need, was the last straw and she collapsed into his arms.

The man held her tighter as if she was his daughter, and she returned the embrace, trying to imagine the arms being that of Eddard Stark comforting a lost and despairing girl. She knew that as soon as she opened her eyes the illusion would disappear, but she didn't want to ruin it so soon, so she kept her eyes closed as the tears of sorrow fell down her cheeks.

For what seemed like seasons, the man and the girl sat there in the dark forest, the latter drowning in her grief while the former shielded her from the surrounding darkness that threatened to swallow them whole. Arya couldn't even begin to understand why a complete stranger would want to hug her out of nowhere, almost as if he knew what was happening to her. She wanted to ask, but she still felt her throat closed, and just hugged harder. It felt like centuries since she had last done that to anyone, and when he enveloped her, she felt warmer and safe from the cold and loneliness that was all the forest had to offer. After a while, though, she started to breathe normally again, and she felt her ability to speak return to her, so she whispered out one short question.

"Why are you doing this?"

The man didn't respond immediately, but then Arya heard him say "Because you need it the most now".

Although she hated to admit it, she did. She hadn't had anyone care for her in such a way for what seemed like months, and she had never felt more alone than this night. She squeezed tighter and felt it reciprocate, and silence followed. But then, common sense took her again, and she broke apart.

"Why are you really doing this" she asked, looking at the man's face, her cheeks still wet. His face was as pale and bony as his hands, and his eyes were brown and warm but filled with mystery. She didn't care who he was, even if he did come out of nowhere to try to cheer her up. The Brotherhood Without Banners said they were helping her, and they were only lying the whole time.

"I'm honest" the man said, his eyes never leaving her. "Trust me, Arya. There's no other reason I would want to do this".

But now Arya was on alert. This man knew her name without her telling him, and he was speaking it in the most detached manner she had heard. Now she really didn't trust him.

"How am I supposed to trust you if you know my name and I never told it to you?" she pointed out.

"I know about a lot about almost everything here" the man said, and he turned and began to pace slowly, but still keeping within short distance of her, and always looking in her direction while facing the forest. "Including what's happened and what's going to happen". He stopped walking after a few short steps and turned to face her again.

"It doesn't matter" Arya found herself saying, the cold creeping back into her once again. "My family's dead or scattered. I'm in the middle of nowhere, far away from home, and I don't think I'll see any of my brothers or sister again. I know I won't see one of them" she added bitterly, refusing to weep once more.

"It matters that you're alive" he replied, almost casually, but with his words came a sort of tone of encouraging. At least, an attempt to, because Arya wasn't convinced.

"How?" she asked, looking into the darkness of the forest.

"Look" the man pressed, "I know what you're feeling, I know what its like-"

His words sounded as if he was talking to a child. He _didn't_ know how she felt. He didn't have to see his family get killed off in front of him without being able to do anything. His complete ignorance at what she felt inflamed her fury and she swirled to him.

"No, you DON'T know how I feel" she said furiously. "You don't –"

But when she looked into his eyes, he looked so serious that she quieted down. Not because she felt she was yelling at a man who just moments previously was reassuring her, but because something about his eyes told her she was terribly mistaken about him not knowing her emotions. In fact, judging from just his eyes, she felt as if he had been through a lot worse, even if he didn't imply it verbally.

"Listen" he said, quietly but not without kindness despite her outburst "you may see it all hopeless now. You've probably even given up at this point but listen to me. You've lived through all this pain and misery now, but it doesn't last. You're destined for great things, Arya, things you could only _begin_ to imagine now" His voice slowly became more passionate and energetic. "I know it because I've seen it".

"There's only one thing I want" Arya said, the hatred rising in her again. "I want them dead. Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, all of them".

"Normally, that's not a path I would take" the man said, now sounding a bit wary "but I can't direct your path for you. Not now that it's already happened."

Even if he could, he wouldn't stop her if she saw them. With her family in ashes, vengeance was all she lived for. But what was vengeance if you couldn't carry it out?

"You said you've seen my future" Arya said, an idea forming in her head.

"That I have" the man answered.

"That means you've been there" Arya noted.

"Precisely" was the reply "And before you ask, no. Everything's set in stone, and nothing I can do will stop it. I'm so sorry, Arya" he said, sounding more apologetic than anyone Arya had heard before "I wish I could, but I can't."

"But-" Arya began.

"Arya" the man said, now very seriously and gazing into her eyes, kneeling down to bring his own level with hers "I know you feel like giving up at this point, but running from your problems doesn't stop them from existing. You've gone through a truly horrible experience, running by yourself through a war-torn continent all alone, seeing everyone you love die under your eyes, but the worst of it will come to pass. You have a future here, and the rest of your family to find. You can't leave them here. Your path will unfold in front of you in time. I won't take you away from here or show you what's to come. You'll discover that eventually".

Arya heaved a sigh. As much as she wanted to escape, to get away from it all, the man was right. She couldn't leave. Not now, and not ever. There was no fleeing, and no surrendering. She felt her resolve creep back into her, banishing the cold from her soul. Although her heart remained hollow, despair was slowly giving way to courage.

From now on, the lone wolf would live.

She nodded in understanding. The man then stood up and, with his face a bit less forlorn said "Right then" and extended a hand towards her.

Arya just looked at it, unsure of what she was to do. The man noticed and sheepishly drew back his hair with it "Well, that doesn't always work". He looked back at her.

"Now then, Arya Stark. Time for me to leave."

"Will I ever see you again?" Arya asked.

"I'm afraid not. This is the first and last time you will, in fact" he said, sounding a bit saddened by the fact. "All I can tell you now is this. Good luck, and farewell, Arya Stark".

He nodded towards her in acknowledgement, and she returned the gesture. The man then turned and began to walk towards the bushes he came from.

"Wait" Arya called out, and the man turned. "I have a question".

He raised his eyebrows in waiting, one of his hands on the trunk of the nearby tree.

"Who are you?"

The man blinked several times, and Arya saw the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"A friend" he said, and with that, he vanished behind the tree, leaving Arya alone once again in the dark.

Arya stared at the tree from where the man disappeared behind, processing the thoughts within her head. Although she was far away from home, traveling with a killer, all alone, and although her chances of seeing her family again was growing thinner, she could count on one thing.

She was still alive.

But she still had no idea what this man meant. _A friend_.

Did he mean her friend? She doubted it. He had only just seen her for the first time.

Or did he? He knew her name, and what she had done and…apparently, what she will do. She had seen him for the first time in her life, that much was certain, but she didn't know if the reverse was true. She didn't even know whether to trust him or not. At this point, though, it wouldn't have mattered.

Arya turned towards the campfire to return to her side of the fireplace and try to sleep when she heard it again.

The strange grinding noise.

This wasn't a coincidence. Arya turned her head towards the direction the sound was coming from, knowing that this man was somehow related to it. He came after the noise appeared, and now she was hearing it again. _What could it be?_

Before Arya could come to a decision about whether or not to search for him again, however, the sound had vanished, leaving her once again in the dark.

A part of her told her to explore the forest, to see if there was any trace of the stranger lying around, or maybe even uncover what was making that noise. But a stronger part of her refused that. It was nightfall, and the man was gone. He said so himself. There was no point in trying to look for him.

She grudgingly paced slowly back to the camp, where she found the Hound snorting himself awake.

"Where the hell were you, girl?" he grunted irritantly. "Trying to run off?"

"I was passing water" she responded defensively. He didn't need to know about the exchange.

Fortunately, the Hound didn't question her further, then dropped back snoring, apparently not noticing that Arya had nabbed his dagger. She didn't wake him up to tell him.

Instead, she returned back to the side of the campfire where she once was, and lay down, trying to sleep once more. This time, her eyes closed a little easier than before, and sleep was slowly seeping into her, with no trace of the disturbing images of before.

As the comforting darkness overtook her, she uttered her nighttime prayers.

_Joffrey...Cersei… Ilyn Payne…Polliver…the Mountain…_

_I will live_, she thought. _And they will pay._

_All of them._


End file.
